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How did Russia take over the driver's seat from the US on Syria?

Barbara MillerUpdated
Fri Sep 13 14:48:00 EST 2013

Russian President Vladimir Putin is now the key player in moves to get Syria to surrender control of its chemical weapons to avoid any unilateral US military action. But as the talks began in Geneva it's clear agreement is a long way off, with John Kerry appearing to reject Syria's conditions for compliance.

Transcript

SCOTT BEVAN: Russia has long been seen as a barrier to a co-ordinated international response to Syria's civil war, but now president Putin is in the driving seat.

The US secretary of state John Kerry has flown back to Europe to discuss a Russian-led initiative to get Syria to cede control of its chemical weapons.

Well Vladimir Putin's plan has already yielded some tangible results, with the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad admitting for the first time that his country holds chemical weapons stockpiles and agreed to join the global anti-chemical weapons treaty.

Our Europe correspondent Barbara Miller reports.

BARBARA MILLER: It was shaping up to be a week where all the attention was focused on Washington.

But an apparently off the cuff remark from the US secretary of state John Kerry was seized upon by Russia.

Now president Vladimir Putin is the key player in moves to get Syria to surrender control of its chemical weapons and the drive to military action is on hold.

Democratic congressman Brad Sherman:

BEN SHERMAN: I think what the Russians have proposed may turn out to be the best thing to come out of Russia since vodka.

BARBARA MILLER: James Nixey is the head of the Russia program at the London-based think-tank Chatham House

JAMES NIXEY: It's a diplomatic coup. Russia does like to be seen as a world leader, a player on the scene. What Russia hates more than anything else is being inconsequential, being left out. It was once upon a time one of two global superpowers. Now it's just 2 per cent of the world economy. So to claw back at least a little bit of that in diplomatic coups but also making the Americans look a little bit foolish at the same time, that helps president Putin an awful lot. It was, as somebody said earlier, it is one of the best days of Putin's thirteen year presidency so far.

BARBARA MILLER: James Nixey says the Russian initiative could significantly change the political landscape:

JAMES NIXEY: If it does work, then it's really thrown a curveball at the international community, at the Americans, and at Russia critics who generally believe that Russia is a spoiler, is a force for bad in world politics. If it's done something extraordinary here then I think there might need to be a reappraisal of Russian foreign policy, but we're a long way of that yet.

TONY BRENTON: I've worked on Russia for more than twenty years. This is the most dramatic single diplomatic initiative that I have seen them take in that time.

BARBARA MILLER: Sir Tony Brenton is a former British ambassador to Russia.

What does he think is in it for Vladimir Putin?

TONY BRENTON: Self-interest. They are, they hate the idea of America bombing. They hate the idea of losing Assad. They are very worried that first of all America would have to bypass the Security Council which is directly damaging to Russia, because Russia, quite a lot of Russia's international authority comes from their veto in the Security Council. I think one of their deepest worries is the fear of Islamism rising in Syria, taking over in Syria, because they have a really terrible Islamist problem and terrorist problem at home in Russia.

BARBARA MILLER: John Kerry only left Europe on Monday after attending the G20 in Russia and then spending several days trying to convince European leaders to back a military strike on Syria.

By Friday he was back to meet the foreign minister of the very country which was seen as the biggest obstacle to getting international agreement.

Edward Lucas is the international editor of The Economist magazine.

EDWARD LUCAS: I think it's an astonishingly successful diplomatic stunt. He's really wrong-footed the west. He's revelling in the disarray both between Western countries and actually inside Western countries. He's bought a lot of time for his ally or his friend Bashar al-Assad and he's whitewashed the deplorable Russian record over the past two years, where Russia has systematically blocked any attempt to put pressure on the regime which might have been a pre-condition for some kind of peace deal. And then finally in a marvellous bit of chutzpah he's parked his tanks actually on Barack Obama's lawn with this article in the New York Times.

BARBARA MILLER: As the talks began in Geneva it was clear agreement was a long way off, with John Kerry appearing to reject Syria's conditions for compliance.

But as far as president Vladimir Putin is concerned, even if his initiative fails, he can at least say he tried.